Open government data has changed the way we understand civics. The Open Government Data (The Book) is about the principles behind that movement — yes, it is a movement — and its development in the United States. Topics include principles of open government data, the history of the movement, applications to transparency and civic engagement, a brief legal history, data quality, APIs, prioritization, civic hacking, case studies, and paradoxes in transparency.

Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate issue press
releases and other statements on multiple topics via their official
websites. Represent regularly checks for new statements and posts links
to them here. You can search the titles of the statements.

As a follow-up to May's Political Wine, here are the associated article's referenced in Doc CURLIN's presentation:

The power of impeachment is a more promising tool for curtailing a defective Presidency. The Framers considered the ability to eject an executive so critical that they enshrined it in the Constitution even before they had agreed on the details of the office itself. On June 2, 1787, while the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, in Philadelphia, were still arguing whether the Presidency should consist of a committee or a single person, they adopted, without debate, the right to impeach for "malpractice or neglect of duty".

The Times editorial board will look more closely at the new president, with a special attention to three troubling traits:

Trump’s shocking lack of respect for those fundamental rules and institutions on which our government is based. Since Jan. 20, he has repeatedly disparaged and challenged those entities that have threatened his agenda, stoking public distrust of essential institutions in a way that undermines faith in American democracy.

His utter lack of regard for truth. Whether it is the easily disprovable boasts about the size of his inauguration crowd or his unsubstantiated assertion that Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower, the new president regularly muddies the waters of fact and fiction.

His scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories, racist memes and crackpot, out-of-the-mainstream ideas. Again, it is not clear whether he believes them or merely uses them.

The insult that Donald Trump brings to the equation is an apparent disregard for fact so profound as to suggest that he may not see much practical distinction between lies, if he believes they serve him, and the truth. His approach succeeds because of his preternaturally deft grasp of his audience. Though he is neither terribly articulate nor a seasoned politician, he has a remarkable instinct for discerning which conspiracy theories in which quasi-news source, or which of his own inner musings, will turn into ratings gold.

What’s uniquely threatening about Trump’s approach, though, is how many fronts he’s opened in this struggle for power and the vehemence with which he seeks to undermine the institutions that don’t go along. It’s one thing to complain about a judicial decision or to argue for less regulation, but to the extent that Trump weakens public trust in essential institutions like the courts and the media, he undermines faith in democracy and in the system and processes that make it work.

This may seem like bizarre behavior from a man who consumes the news in print and on television so voraciously and who is in many ways a product of the media. He comes from reality TV, from talk radio with Howard Stern, from the gossip pages of the New York City tabloids, for whose columnists he was both a regular subject and a regular source. But Trump’s strategy is pretty clear: By branding reporters as liars, he apparently hopes to discredit, disrupt or bully into silence anyone who challenges his version of reality.

Trump seems as willing to mouth off today as he was on the campaign — about wiretaps, inauguration crowds, fraudulent voters, you name it. And the problem with that is that he is no longer a blowhard TV personality or a raunchy guest on Howard Stern or a self-promoting real estate magnate or even a long-shot candidate for the Republican nomination. He’s now the president of the United States, and he is allowing the credibility of his unimaginably powerful office to be exploited and wasted on crackpot ideas that have been rightly discredited by politicians from both parties.

But as we settle in for the next four years, California needs to be clear-eyed about the challenges it faces and strategic about how it responds. An all-out war with the federal government is neither sustainable nor wise. The state will have to choose its battles.

The political math is clarifying: 489 of the wealthiest counties in the country voted for Clinton; the remaining 2,623 counties, largely made up of small towns, suburbs, and rural areas, voted for Trump. Slightly fewer than 55% of all voting-age adults bestirred themselves to go to the polls. That statistic is at least as painful to process as the Comey letter, the Russian hack of the D.N.C., the strategic failures of the Clinton campaign, and the over-all darkness of the Trump campaign. It’s a statistic about passivity, which is just what a democracy in the era of Trump can no longer afford.

The Riviera Chapter received positive feedback from our guest speaker, Brian Dunhill, from OmniWealth. For such a heavy topic on financial investments in a FATCA market, one hour wasn't long enough. As a follow-up to our presentation, here are some important resources:

The results are in from the first Congressional Special Elections and Democratic voters are energized! In California, Republicans were completely locked out of the June Runoff Election and in Kansas - one of the reddest Congressional Districts in the US - Republicans eked out a win after suffering a huge 20 point drop from Trump’s winning margin.

LET’S WIN THE UPCOMING SPECIAL ELECTIONS IN GEORGIA, MONTANA AND SOUTH CAROLINA!

Sign up to phonebank in GeorgiaYou can call voters in Georgia about the upcoming Special Election on Tuesday, April 18. This is a rare opportunity to flip a long-held Republican seat and demonstrate just how unpopular the Republican agenda is!

Join Democrats Abroad's phonebanking campaign

We’re calling DA members - who vote in GA, MT and SC - to help them register, request their ballots and vote in these Special Elections. Our CallHub phonebanking system is 100% online, so you don’t have to use a single minute of your phone plan. All you need is a computer or laptop, Internet access, and a headset (or cellphone ear buds). You just follow the script displayed on your screen and click on the answers to the survey.

Our Democrats Abroad France - Riviera Chapter activities don’t come without the strong efforts of a vibrant Executive Committee. So the time has come for our own Executive Committee elections. Please review our online ballot in a PDF format to vote for the following positions:

It's ironic that President Trump's first budget proposal undermines the very communities whose economic hardship and sense of isolation from the rest of the country helped propel him into office. These working class communities—many of them located in the Midwest and the South—were tired of being treated like 'flyover country, but by proposing the elimination of Amtrak's long distance trains, the Trump administration does them one worse, cutting a vital service that connects these small town economies to the rest of the U.S.

I mean, they have very extreme views, and they're impatient - both of them. They want action fast. And what was a question for me as I was reporting this was, so how did they get what they wanted? What did they do? And they couldn't really do it on their own because, like many wealthy people who have strong political ideas, they have no idea how to sort of manipulate politics. They need some kind of professional help. And the person they turned to for that was Steve Bannon.

Perhaps you know the feeling. Before your first cup of coffee, you debate whether to check the news to see what happened while you were sleeping. You try to resist, as something about your news obsession feels voyeuristic, undignified. But you check anyway . . . . You feel overwhelmed and powerless. You are torn between focusing on what is happening in America and retreating into the comfort of being far away. Yet you know in your gut that retreat is a privilege whose comfort is illusory.